Day 21: July 11th

After a slow start we decided to have a drive to Portmeirion which is about 10 minutes from Porthmadog. It was cold and drizzling in the morning but showed signs of improving. The barmaid from the Red Lion had said how nice it was and it is the local tourist attraction. She said you had to pay £18 each to get in but we might be able to avoid that given we were booked into Castell Deudraeth for dinner. That’s a ‘castle/lodge/hotel’ place on the edge of the village that is part of the overall accommodation offering.
Portmeirion is where they filmed The Prisoner which was a 1960/70s dystopian series about a spy that got captured. The village itself was built by a welsh architect on family land (he inherited big time) who wanted to show that buildings and gardens can enhance a landscape. It is now run by a charitable trust and was always intended as a tourist accommodation venue and that is how it is run now, with the various villas available for rent and a hotel operating down near the water (supplemented by 12 rooms at the Castell). We didn’t really know what to expect but decided to take a look given it was the local attraction. Well we were thoroughly glad we did and especially as the sun came out. And the lady waived the entry fee when I ‘mentioned’ we were booked into the Castell for dinner. That was a saving of $72 but it made Mike nervous about the cost of dinner.

And the sun came out!! This is the hotel down at the base of the cliff but you arrive up at the top.

The whole village is built on the side of a cliff and there are extensive walks within and beyond the village of Portmeirion.

There can never be too many pink hydrangeas photos.

After our visit to Portmeirion we returned to our accommodation hoping that the washing had dried (it more or less had) and had a rest before going to the Castell for dinner. My black eyes got progressively worse and I was pretty lukewarm about dinner but we had booked!

On the subject of washing I find it frustrating that the hosts don’t clearly label anything. For a start every shower is like a plumbing IQ challenge and that’s just to figure out how you get the water to go and to go hot! With washing, they leave a container of these plastic things that look just like what we use in our dishwasher at home. But there is also a bottle of liquid called Fairy liquid that I know they use for dishes. At the place in Galway, there was no dishwasher and the clothes wash stuff was in a combined plastic cube thing that the box instructions said to put in the drum before the clothes so I did that this time but remain worried that I’ve just put our clothes through the rapid cycle ( the Galway cycle took 5 hours – I kid you not) with some dishwash stuff!
If our skin starts to disintegrate after wearing I guess we’ll know for certain.
We didn’t get a frontal shot of Castell Deudraeth as people were looking out that way while dining and even for us that was a step too far. However the back gives a sense of it. It got vastly extended in the early 1900s but had been an ancient Castell long before that.

These were the entrees. I was still only eating a small amount after the events of the previous evening so some salmon and then a couple of lamb chops was it for me. Tasty and beautifully presented but not outstanding!

The dinner wasn’t too expensive as we only had 2 courses and I was drinking diet coke!

On the way back into town I stopped to photograph this forecourt. I can’t be the only one that thinks there is something not quite right about the combination of offerings here!